In the last third of this book we explore the tree of life from a genomics perspective. Chapter 15 includes the following:

An overview of the history of life on earth, and a description of bioinformatics approaches to making a tree of life

A chronological survey of genome sequencing projects

A description of genome sequencing

We'll explore the Trace Archive for raw data

We'll learn how to use Velvet for genome assembly, and Mauve to compare assemblies

An overview of how genomes are annotated, including the Ensembl and NCBI pipelines and standards for annotation

For classes on genomics, I recommend that you look at Web Document 15.1 which presents five perspectives on genomics. Students can select a genome of any favorite organism and analyze it in depth according to these organizing principles. As an alternative project, students can select a favorite gene and analyze it across many genomes (see Web Document 15.2).

The WebLinks are all referred to in the chapter. Some of the key URLs we'll encounter include: NCBI; UCSC Genome Browser; Ribosomal Database Project at Michigan State University; Pfam (Protein Family Database); MEGA phylogeny software.